


ooh child things will get brighter

by boldlygoingnowherefast



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Kid Peter Quill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-22 00:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14925513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boldlygoingnowherefast/pseuds/boldlygoingnowherefast
Summary: When Peter's Walkman goes on the fritz, Yondu realizes he might be in over his head with this childrearing thing





	ooh child things will get brighter

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this little thing last year, but I decided I kinda liked it. 
> 
> Have some nine-year-old Peter Quill and a baffled Yondu and Kraglin.

When the Ravagers abducted Peter Quill, he had thrown a fit. The boy had kicked his legs, bit any fingers that got too close to him and ran away to hide in the ventilation system. Once they had finally extracted him from the bowels of the ship, which had been difficult even with Yondu lending a hand, Yondu had promised Peter he wouldn’t take his stuff or hurt him unless he misbehaved.

Quill was never seen without the strange square device strapped to his hip and hooked around his neck. It took at least three months for Yondu to realize it was a music player, and even longer to coax Peter into explaining it. He had figured out that getting Peter to talk about music was a surefire way to gain his trust, and when Peter trusted you, he was much easier to deal with. If that meant Yondu had to deal with Peter’s weird Terran music every once in a while, it was worth it to have a friendly, happy kid as opposed to one who was prone to biting.

After a year and a half of Peter being on the _Eclector_ , most of the crew was familiar with Peter’s music, and many of them could sing along. Yondu wasn’t sure how he felt about a crew of Ravagers that shared music with a nine-year-old Terran, but it didn’t affect their productivity, so he wasn’t complaining.

Yondu was humming _Hooked on a Feeling,_ reading through job reports on a datapad, when Shiva came into the break room, hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Uh, Captain? We have a problem.”

Yondu looked up, uncrossing his legs and sitting forward in his chair. “What is it?”

“It’s the Terran. He’s having a fit or something.”

Yondu stood up. “He hurt?”

Shiva shook his head. “He’s standing in the mess hall, just sorta screaming.”

Yondu blinked in surprise. When Quill was upset, he usually got into scraps, or he ran to a corner of the ship and hid. Screaming in a crowded room wasn’t really his style.

“Well, what’s wrong with him, then?”

Shiva was looking more and more uncomfortable. “I don’t know, sir. But I thought you’d like to know, in case you wanted to, uh, help or something.”

Yondu sighed, standing up from his chair and following Shiva out of the break room. “You all need to stop treating Peter like he’s gonna explode.”

Shiva’s gaze flicked to Yondu for a moment. “He does, sir, it’s just not the meaty, messy kind of explosion.”

The noise was evident from the hallway outside the mess, a combination of Peter’s voice, thin and reedy as he wailed wordlessly, and the goading shouts of Ravagers. This did not bode well at all. Yondu pushed through the ring of Ravagers that were circled loosely around the center of the mess, finding the boy slumped in the middle, clutching something to his chest.

“Boy, shut it! You’re going to shatter all the glass on this ship with that racket,” Yondu said, crossing his arms and staring down at the boy. Peter quieted and stared up at him, tears streaming down his face. Yondu hadn’t seen him cry like this since the first few weeks he had been aboard the ship, which meant something must really be wrong. Yondu didn’t know the maturation process of Terrans, but Peter seemed a little too old for this sort of tantrum.

“Come on, now, Quill. Tell me why you’re throwing a fit in the middle of the mess hall.”

Peter sniffled, and he opened his arms to reveal his Walkman. There was a strange black tape spilling from the plastic, a tangled strip. That didn’t look good.

“How’d that happen?”

“I was trying to rewind it by hand like my mom showed me and the tape started pulling out and I tried to fix it and it just got worse. It’s broken, and now I can’t listen to my music.” Peter started crying again, a helpless, broken sound that had Yondu’s mouth tightening.

“Here, let me look at it.” Anything to stop the tears. Yondu was not good with tears.

Peter reluctantly handed the cassette to Yondu, who took one close look at it and decided this was something he’d need concentration for. Now that the screaming had stopped, the crew gradually decided that there was nothing more to see and wandered back to their lunch. The sound of metal dishes on metal tables and the rough murmur of Ravager voices filled the room. Yondu ushered Peter out of the mess hall and towards his quarters, where it would be quiet.

Thanos, he hoped he could figure out how to fix the thing. He didn’t know what Peter would do if he didn’t have his music to calm him down. Yondu didn’t want to think about it.

He led Peter into his room and sat down in his desk chair, turning on the little plasma light that sat amidst the clutter on his desk so he could get a better look at the mangled piece of Terran technology in his hands.

Peter sat on the extra chair in his room and watched with big eyes as Yondu poked and prodded, twisted and tried to untangle. While he wasn’t making it worse, he also wasn’t making it better. He was getting more and more frustrated as the dumb brown tape wouldn’t wind back into place inside the white plastic of the cassette. The little pieces made his fingers feel big.

Yondu knew someone who had smaller fingers than he did. He lifted his wrist piece to his mouth. “Kraglin, come to my quarters, I need your hands.”

“Uhhh… sure, cap’n.”

Kraglin was there in two minutes and sounded the buzzer on Yondu’s door. Yondu waved it open and Kraglin stepped in, looking curiously at the two of them sitting at Yondu’s desk.

“Whatcha got there, cap’n?”

Yondu lifted the plastic in his hands. “It’s Peter’s music box. I know you’re pretty handy and thought you might be able to fix it.”

Kraglin stepped up to them, taking the cassette in his hands and twisting it around so he could look at it from all angles. “This is pretty flarked up, sir.”

Yondu shot him a look he hoped conveyed ‘shut up.’ Kraglin’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Uh, but I’ll see what I can do? Can I have a spot under the light?”

Yondu grunted and stood with a gesture for Kraglin to take his seat. Kraglin’s face, when he was focused, was a pained one, brows furrowed and mouth bent into a grimace, and that was the one on his face now as he fiddled with the little device. Peter was staring at his progress intently, leaning forward in his chair, neck strained so he could see up to Kraglin’s hands. If Yondu was the sentimental kind, and he weren’t, thank you very much, he would have found the scene cute. His first mate helping out their resident Terran kid with something that meant a lot to him.

Yondu shook his head and sat on the edge of the bed with the decision to get back to his reports in the hope that Kraglin would fix the device and they could all get about their business in peace.

“No, you have to twist it that way!” Peter said, pointing.

Kraglin jerked the cassette away from little fingers. “I know that! I have to give it more slack so I can get it untangled.”

“But you’re going to tear it!”

“I’m not, be patient.”

Yondu was fairly used to the bickering. Peter got on Kraglin’s nerves, and Kraglin wasn’t stoic enough to let it go over his head, which resulted in petty arguments at all hours of the day. Yondu sometimes found it amusing, but most of the time it just reminded him that his life was a mess and the people he kept close were nuisances.

They fell silent as Kraglin worked and worked, tongue pressed between silver teeth in concentration. And then:

“I think I got it! Peter, give me the player.”

Peter handed the Walkman over, face intent. Kraglin took it, slotting the cassette into it, closing it, and pressing ‘play.’

_“O-o-h child, things are gonna get easier, o-o-h child…”_

Peter bounced in his seat, snatching the Walkman from Kraglin’s hands with a huge smile on his face. “You fixed it!”

A smug look had camped on Kraglin’s face as he watched Peter loop the headphones over his ears and clutch the plastic device to his chest. Yondu stood. “Alright, now that this little party is over, Kraglin and me need to get back to work.”

Kraglin stood on spindly legs, in mid-turn, mouth open to say something to Yondu, when Peter sprung out of his chair and wound his little arms around Kraglin’s middle, face pressing into the leather on Kraglin’s stomach. Kraglin looked like he had been hit in the face with something blunt, staring down at Peter’s head with big eyes and holding his arms out from his sides awkwardly. It was as though Peter was some unfortunate space slug that had latched onto Kraglin’s stomach, and Kraglin had no idea what to do with it.

“Thank you, Kraglin,” Peter said, his voice muffled in Kraglin’s jumpsuit.

Yondu sniggered at the look on Kraglin’s face, though Yondu was fighting through a strange warm feeling in his chest that sparked at the sight of little Peter clinging to a bewildered Kraglin.

Peter stepped back quickly, hands behind his back, timid again. “I’ll go back cleaning the mess hall, now.” Kraglin nodded, blank-faced.

Peter glanced at Yondu. “Thanks for helping, too, Yondu.”

“Get back to work, boy,” Yondu replied, and Peter scurried off, still clutching his Walkman like a lifeline.

The clang of Yondu’s door closing was loud in the silence. Kraglin turned to Yondu. “He hugged me, boss.”

Yondu shrugged. “That boy is obsessed with that old Terran toy, and you fixed it. Shoulda seen it coming.”

“I can’t remember the last time someone hugged me who wasn’t fixin’ to stab me.”

Yondu shot him a look. “Don’t get all depressing on me, Kraglin.”

Kraglin shook his head. “S’just strange is all.”

Yondu slapped him on the back. “Come on, I need to go over reports with you, but I can’t if you’re brain’s gone fuzzy.”

Kraglin shook himself out of it. “I’m feelin’ fine, cap’n.”

“Good. Let’s get to work.”

Kraglin was still just as testy with Peter as he always was, but after Kraglin had fixed Peter’s Walkman, Peter had decided that Kraglin wasn’t threatening at all. Kraglin hated it, and Yondu thought it was hilarious.

Yondu sat next to Kraglin in the mess one day, noting the disgruntled expression on Kraglin’s face.

“What crawled up your ass and died?” Yondu asked, shoveling a forkful of something orange and shapeless into his mouth.

“Quill just spent thirty minutes talking about a Terran named David Hasselhoff.”

“Oh yeah, he’s told me about him too,” Yondu responded. “But never for that long.”

Kraglin shook his head, stabbing at his own food. “Quill thinks he can just come up and talk to me like I suddenly care what he’s talking about.”

Yondu snickered. “It seems you’ve made yourself a friend, Krags.”

“I don’t _want_ a friend, boss, and certainly not an irritating Terran.” Kraglin chewed with a thunderous expression on his face. “I have no idea what to do.”

Yondu tapped his spoon against his lower lip. “Maybe you just gotta let it run itself out. The boy will realize you’re nothing more than a crabby, grubby low-life and will find some new interests.”

Kraglin brightened. “You really think so?”

“And it’s not like him having a role model is a bad thing, right? You’re one of my more loyal crew members, and we’re trying to mold him into a good Ravager.”

Kraglin thought it over. “Who thought our Ravager crew would have to raise a kid, huh?”

Yondu shrugged. “It’s a lot different than I thought it’d be when I gave myself a chance to think about children at all.”

They sat in thoughtful silence for a few minutes, only for the silence to be disrupted by a clatter as Peter threw himself into the bench across from them.

“Kraglin, Yondu! Have you guys ever seen Footloose? It’s a great movie about the power of dance and I think the Ravagers should all watch it. We could have a movie night! Movie nights are great for bonding and teamwork, right?”

Kraglin’s shoulders slumped and he shot a glance at Yondu. “I liked him better when he was scared of me.”

Yondu narrowed his eyes and made strong eye contact with Peter. “How’s about this, boy? Every few thievin’ skills you learn, Kraglin will listen to you talk about one piece of Terran culture.”

“Cap’n!” Kraglin yelped, right as Peter started bouncing in his seat.

“Can it,” Yondu ordered. “And sit still, kid.” Yondu shook his head. “We want Quill to learn how to be a proper Ravager, and if it means you have to sit through an explanation of some irritating song, it’s a sacrifice you’re willing to make. Right, Kraglin?”

Kraglin sighed. “Yes, boss.”

“And Quill, you’re going to listen well to the lessons I teach you, right?”

Peter smiled. “Yes, Yondu.”

Yondu grinned. “Perfect.”

If more crew members than Yondu ended up learning all the words to Peter’s music and quoting David Hasselhoff, well that was beside the point.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://thevulcanpresident.tumblr.com)


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